02
Foundation Repair and Underpinning
Reading the crack pattern, carrying the load on jack posts while the footings are opened, then block, parging and drainage so the repair actually holds.
Chapter 01
Reading the damage: what the crack pattern tells you
A crack in a foundation wall is not one problem, it is a pattern that tells you what is happening underneath. A stairstep crack running through the mortar joints of a block wall usually points to settling on one side of the footing. A straight vertical crack through the block itself is a different failure than a horizontal crack bowing inward under soil pressure.
Reading that pattern correctly before anything comes out of the ground is most of the job. It decides whether the fix is a section of underpinning under one corner or a longer run of wall that needs the load carried the whole way across.
Foundation underpinning in progress with jack posts and exposed footings on a Pittsburgh area basement
Underpinning and jack posts: how the load gets carried while the work happens
Underpinning means opening the footing in sections and extending it deeper or wider so it actually carries the load the house is putting on it. That cannot happen with the wall still resting on the old footing, so jack posts go in first to hold the structure while each section is opened, poured and cured.
Working in sections rather than all at once is what keeps the house supported the entire time instead of only at the start and end of the job. It is slower than opening the whole wall at once, and it is the difference between a repair that holds and one that shifts again in a few years.
Chapter 03
Block, parge and drainage so the repair holds
Once the new footing has cured, the block goes back in over it, and the wall gets parged, a cement coating troweled over the block face to seal the surface against moisture. Skipping that step is a common shortcut, and it is the reason some foundation repairs fail again within a few winters.
Drainage is the part of the job nobody sees once the yard is graded back over it. Water directed away from the footing is what keeps a repaired foundation from having the same problem again the next time the clay soil around it swells with a wet season.
Block work beyond the repair: new foundations and additions
The same crew that underpins a failing foundation also lays block for new construction, room additions and full new foundations, residential and commercial. It is the same trade whether the block is going in to fix something or to build something new.
A new block foundation goes in the same way a repair does, poured footing, block laid course by course, then parged and drained the same as any wall that has to hold water out for good. New construction and restoration sit side by side in what the crew does, not as two different businesses.
Zokaites Masonry, Fully licensed and insured. PA contractor licence PA121063. Call (412) 386-0569.
A customer who has used us twice
Block for a repair, then stone on a different job
“Mike blocked a house for me and his guys were good, quick and reasonably priced. I have also used him for stone on another project. Both projects were done very well and in a professional manner.”
